Improving your Governance through technology
Whilst many of the vCOO engagements we’ve had have involved a very diverse and broad set of deliverables and objectives, they all have one common trait: they have been focussed, in some way or another, on improving operational governance and risk management. This has taken many forms, but essentially the Clients have engaged Soitaire’s vCOO […]
A Christmas Message 2023
As the year comes to a close, I want to thank you all for being part of our Solitaire journey, and for trusting us with your business needs. All our clients and partners have shown remarkable adaptability and creativity in facing the challenges and opportunities that this year has brought. We are honoured to work […]
Driving Change Effectively
The following example comes from a recent case study where, through the vCOO service, we’ve helped a client re-energise, re-prioritise and more effectively communicate a change programme which had stalled and “lost its mojo”. Through time, it had lost some direction, focus and the Business had forgotten what was driving the programme in the first […]
Making Things Happen! – reflections on “virtual” COO service
The month of December marked 11 months since the launch of Solitaire’s “virtual” COO service (Virtual Chief Operating Officer)– a service aimed at providing businesses (and business leaders) with an experienced and proven, senior operational resource on a part-time flexible basis. Of course, there is nothing “virtual” about the service – it is very real, […]
“IT”‘s Complicated
Are you frustrated by IT, and IT Support seems to be a growing list, or black hole of things that struggle to be resolved? As businesses grow, so does the stack of applications, tools, processes and supporting infrastructure. It’s not uncommon to hear IT teams and management saying they do not have enough resources or […]
Solitaire Consulting welcomes Andy Jarvis as Senior Consultant
Solitaire Consulting is delighted to announce that Andy Jarvis has joined as a Senior Consultant. Andy joins the business having worked in technology leadership and consulting roles globally, across financial services, telecoms, engineering and the services sector. He brings with him over 20 years’ experience in Technology and Operational leadership at C-suite level, having led […]
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Data Management
Businesses thrive or die by the quality of their data. In this article I will describe three examples of good, bad and ugly approaches to data management, with some lessons learnt at the end. These have all come up in the course of our work, but I have made some changes to protect against identification […]
M&A Integrations: Why Asking The Right Questions Early On Is Key To Success
We love doing system implementation projects; they’re hugely rewarding for our clients and for us. However, one particular integration project we are presently working on has had a more difficult beginning than it needed to have. During the planning, we very quickly realised that the driver for the project is a much deeper and broader […]
Why hiring for character is key to building a successful team
My colleague Paul Every’s recent email on resources (“getting the right people on the bus”) got me thinking about the hiring processes of many organisations. In turn this links to the reasons why the process we often follow for setting strategy, is sometimes doomed to underachievement – if not complete failure, because organisations don’t hire […]
Demystifying the Cloud
This article is based on Vega Technolgy‘s event on “Demystifying the Cloud” held in Guernsey in February 2023. The event was opened by Vega Technology’s Managing Director David Collings who introduced speakers Paul Every from Solitaire Consulting and Dan Brown from Resolution IT. Paul presented the business benefits of the cloud, whilst Dan focused on […]
